Another baseball season has come and gone, which means that it's time for me to crunch some numbers and, for no other reason than to satisfy my own curiosity, see how many games I watched this year. This is the (*counts on fingers*) SEVENTH YEAR?!? that I've done this, which is crazy, but it actually is a pretty helpful way of helping me determine whether I'm getting any value out of my subscription.
I won't go into great detail to explain a lot of how and why I do the things that I do, but if you're really curious, you can go back and check out some of my older MLB TV blogs.
Anyway, let's get down to business.
Stats Tracked on the Spreadsheet:
Basically nothing changed on my spreadsheet this year, although I did add one extra column to (hopefully) help me more easily keep track of whether I watched the home team or the road team's broadcast. Here's a quick refresher on what I kept track of for each game that I watch:
- Road team
- Home team
- Home or Road Broadcast
- Winning team
- W/L result of the team whose broadcast I watched
- Duration of viewing
- 1-2 innings: "Minimal"
- 3-4 innings: "Partial"
- 5-7 innings: "Most"
- 8-9 innings: "Full"
- Any interesting notes about the game
Persisting Factors that Affected Viewing Habits:
- All Arizona Diamondback and Colorado Rockies games are blacked out in Utah. It still makes no sense.
- Any nationally televised games (FOX, ESPN, TBS, etc.) are not viewable on MLB TV.
- I work from home and have two young children whose first priority of entertainment during the day is not watching sports.
- I've been married for five years now, which means that my first priority of entertainment at night can't be watching sports, either.
Untracked Games:
As was the case last year, I can't remember any games that I watched that were not broadcast on MLB TV. For the second year in a row, I didn't go on a baseball trip, so I didn't watch any MLB games in person. Maybe next year.
Total Number of Games Watched and Cost Per Game:
- I'll use the same basic explanation that I gave last year: if all 30 Major League teams play 162 games a season, and if each single game counts as two "games played" (one game for the home team and one game for the road team), that equals a total of 4,860 games played.
- Accounting for ReGiOnAl BlAcKoUtS of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies, as well as nationally televised games, I have been lowering the maximum amount of games I would have had access to down to 4,356 games per season.
- I watched a total of 61 baseball games this season, or a total of 122 "games played."
- This is 10 more games than I watched in 2023.
- Based on the approximate number of 4,356 "games played" that I had access to, I watched about 2.8% of those games, a 0.5% increase from last year.
- This year's MLB season ran from March 28 - September 30, a duration of 187 days. For the past two years, I have been using the guideline that I could "reasonably" watch one baseball game per day. I mean, I probably could. Do I watch one game per day? Of course not. But I probably could. For most of this season, it would probably reasonable for me to watch one game per week. But we'll just keep going with it, I guess.
- I watched a total of 61 games throughout the 187-day season, which is 32% of the maximum number of games that I reasonably could have watched - a 5% increase from how much I watched last year.
- Here is the evolution of that percentage since 2018:
- 2018: 11%
- 2019: 26%
- 2020: 29%
- 2021: 17%
- 2022: 31%
- 2023: 27%
- 2024: 32% - A new record!
- This year, I ended up paying the full cost of the subscription (my brother Austin is a big Dodgers fan but currently lives in South Carolina, which would have him staying up until like 2 in the morning any time he wanted to watch a game on the west coast, so I don't really blame him for not wanting in this year). As usual, I divided the cost of my subscription by the number of games that I watched, which came out to about $2.42 per game.
- Here is how my cost-per-game ratio has developed over the years:
- 2018: $2.85/game
- 2019: $1.85/game
- 2020: $1.97/game
- 2021: $1.83/game
- 2022: $1.14/game (split cost)
- 2023: $2.94/game
- 2024: $2.42/game
Duration of Viewing:
The following is a breakdown of how long I watched each game, based on the definitions I established many years ago, in order of duration:
- Most (5-7 innings): 21 games (34%)
- Partial (3-4 innings): 18 games (30%)
- Full (8-9 innings): 13 games (21%)
- Minimal (1-2 innings): 9 games (15%)
Times Watched on the Team's Local Broadcast (Out of 61 Games Watched):
Here is this year's leaderboard for how many times I intentionally tuned into a team's local broadcast:
- Texas Rangers: 23
- Cleveland Guardians: 6
- Seattle Mariners: 5
- Atlanta Braves: 3
Baltimore Orioles: 3
Los Angeles Dodgers: 3
Washington Nationals: 3 - Cincinnati Reds: 2
Miami Marlins: 2
Philadelphia Phillies: 2
San Diego Padres: 2
San Francisco Giants: 2
Tampa Bay Rays: 2 - Kansas City Royals: 1
Los Angeles Angels: 1
Toronto Blue Jays: 1
Times Watched (Total, Out of 102 Total Teams Watched):
Here is a breakdown of how many times I watched all of the other teams play, regardless of which broadcast I tuned into:
- Texas Rangers: 23
- Seattle Mariners: 10
- Cleveland Guardians: 7
Tampa Bay Rays: 7 - Chicago White Sox: 5
Oakland A's: 5
San Diego Padres: 5 - Atlanta Braves: 4
Baltimore Orioles: 4
Los Angeles Angels: 4
Philadelphia Phillies: 4
St. Louis Cardinals: 4
Toronto Blue Jays: 4
Washington Nationals: 4 - Chicago Cubs: 3
Detroit Tigers: 3
Houston Astros: 3
Kansas City Royals: 3
Los Angeles Dodgers: 3
Miami Marlins: 3
Minnesota Twins: 3 - Boston Red Sox: 2
Cincinnati Reds: 2
New York Mets: 2
Pittsburgh Pirates: 2
San Francisco Giants: 2 - Milwaukee Brewers: 1
There were three teams that I didn't watch a single time this year: the Diamondbacks and Rockies (because I couldn't), and the Yankees (because I hate them).
Overall Win/Loss Record:
- This year, teams I tuned in to watch went 36-25, which is all right with me. The teams I watched had some hot streaks and some cold streaks, but I feel like I got to see some pretty good games, overall. This was my second-highest winning percentage since I started tracking this stuff, and my best season since 2019.
- Running W/L percentage tracker:
- 2018: .534
- 2019: .625
- 2020: .410
- 2021: .492
- 2022: .404
- 2023: .490
- 2024: .590
Home/Road Split:
- I tuned into 25 home broadcasts (41%) and 36 road broadcasts this year (59%).
- When I watched a team's home broadcast, those teams went 20-5 (.800), which is totally insane.
- When I watched a team's road broadcast, those teams went 16-20 (.444).
- Regardless of whose broadcast I watched, the home team went 40-21 (.656).
- Regardless of whose broadcast I watched, the road team went 21-40 (.344).
Editor's note: For the record, that was probably the fastest that I have ever done that math.
W/L Records for Teams Whose Broadcast I Watched:
- Los Angeles Dodgers: 3-0 (1.000)
Philadelphia Phillies: 2-0 (1.000)
San Diego Padres: 2-0 (1.000)
San Francisco Giants: 2-0 (1.000)
Los Angeles Angels: 1-0 (1.000)
Toronto Blue Jays: 1-0 (1.000) - Cleveland Guardians: 5-1 (.833)
- Atlanta Braves: 2-1 (.666)Seattle Mariners: 3-2 (.600)
- Texas Rangers: 12-11 (.522)
- Cincinnati Reds: 1-1 (.500)
Miami Marlins: 1-1 (.500) - Baltimore Orioles: 1-2 (.333)
- Kansas City Royals: 0-1 (.000)
Tampa Bay Rays: 0-2 (.000)
Washington Nationals: 0-3 (.000)
W/L Records for Every Team I Watched, Regardless of Broadcast:
- Los Angeles Dodgers: 3-0 (1.000)
Minnesota Twins: 3-0 (1.000)
Boston Red Sox: 2-0 (1.000)
San Francisco Giants: 2-0 (1.000)
Milwaukee Brewers: 1-0 (1.000) - Philadelphia Phillies: 3-1 (.750)
St. Louis Cardinals: 3-1 (.750) - Cleveland Guardians: 5-2 (.714)
- Detroit Tigers: 2-1 (.666)
Houston Astros: 2-1 (.666) - Texas Rangers: 12-11 (.522)
- Atlanta Braves: 2-2 (.500)
Cincinnati Reds: 1-1 (.500)
New York Mets: 1-1 (.500)
Pittsburgh Pirates: 1-1 (.500) - Los Angeles Angels: 2-2 (.500)
Toronto Blue Jays: 2-2 (.500) - San Diego Padres: 2-3 (.400)
- Chicago Cubs: 1-2 (.333)
Miami Marlins: 1-2 (.333) - Seattle Mariners: 3-7 (.300)
- Baltimore Orioles: 1-3 (.250)
- Oakland A's: 1-4 (.200)
- Kansas City Royals: 0-3 (.000)
Washington Nationals: 0-4 (.000)
Chicago White Sox: 0-5 (.000)
Tampa Bay Rays: 0-7 (.000)
Man, what a horrible year for the Rays. Yikes.
Miscellaneous Stats or Other Interesting Things That Happened:
- The first game I watched this season was former Rangers color commentator CJ Nitkowski's first game as a Braves broadcaster. I knew I recognized that voice!
- I saw big innings, like the Rangers scoring 10 runs in the second inning in a game early in the season. I saw bad defense, like the Astros' back-up third baseman having four errors in a span of three or four innings.
- I saw controversial calls! I saw walk-off wins and losses! I saw blown leads to terrible teams, including the Chicago White Sox - the worst team in MLB history! I saw big comeback victories! I turned games off that I should have kept watching! And I almost certainly kept watching games that I should have turned off!
- I saw the Braves get shut out for the first time in over a year.
- In a rather strange series of events, I turned a game on in the third inning and the first two pitches I saw were hit for home runs by the opposing team. Lovely!
- I teams' season opener. I watched a game on Father's Day. I watched a Dodgers game last week that my parents and brothers were attending.
- I watched a Guardians game in which Emmanuel Clase tied the franchise record for saves.
- And speaking of history, most impressively, I was watching the game when Shohei Ohtani passed the 50 home run/50 stolen bases club, in which he posted an absolutely ABSURD stat line of 6/6, 3 HR, 4 R, 10 RBI, 2 SB. This performance pretty much single-handedly saved my fantasy baseball season and led me all the way to the championship, so... Shohei? Thank you. From the bottom of my heart.
Final Thoughts:
Last season, I ended my blog by saying, "Next year, I better either split the cost or just watch like a dozen more games to make me feel better about myself." Well, I watched 10 more games this year than I did last year, and I feel pretty good about myself. I feel good about myself because I really, really slacked this year. I don't know exactly what the cause was - probably that the WORLD SERIES CHAMPION TEXAS RANGERS just weren't very good this year - but I realized in mid-August that I had a long way to go in order to make this subscription worth it. And you know what? I think I did a pretty good job, there in the final month and a half of the season.
That's about it. I'll be watching the playoffs a little bit, most likely, but not with anywhere near the anxiety or engagement as I did last year. As long as the Astros don't win, everything will be ok.
Until next time!
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